Composica authors, listen up! Have you ever been so involved in your design process that you thought for a few seconds you might be losing your mind? I ask this because I know in the past I have sometimes asked this of myself. And, no, I wasn't losing my mind. Let me explain.

While working in Composica on your master layers, dynamic layers, widget pages and document pages, you most likely find that you spend most of your time in Design Mode. This is where you manipulate elements directly on the document page while accessing tabs/features in the Properties Pane, agreed?

Have you EVER selected a page element then tried to modify it using a feature from one of the Properties Pane tabs (Text, Layout, Settings) ONLY to discover what you thought you were looking for is NOT where you thought it would be? For example, you've selected a text container and in the Properties > Layout you are looking for the 'Property' option to modify how the text container's Vertical Overflow (meaning text that is vertically going beyond the 'visual vertical boundaries' of the text container) is displayed. In this situation, you want to set the Vertical Overflow to 'Scroll', but wait, you don't even see any of these options available. This is where the madness begins as you start second-guessing yourself. Was this option available somewhere else, did you just imagine it...STOP!

Actually, you (and I) are not losing our creative minds. It's a simple matter of an option available along the View ribbon. Basically, depending on the viewing 'properties' you have selected, this will determine what you will see displayed within the Text, Layout, Settings tabs in the Properties Pane for your selected element. The viewing properties range from Basic to Normal to Advanced--with Basic showing the fewest options to Advanced showing all available options.

Try this out, and see what I mean:

Open your project up in Design Mode.

Make sure you can see the tabs (Text, Layout, Settings) displayed in the Properties Pane.

Select an element (like a text container) on your document page.

Select the View ribbon.

Swap between the different viewing properties (Basic Properties, Normal Properties, Advanced Properties). As you do this, pay attention to what options are displayed for each properties view.

To see this in action, check out one of the videos that follow in the viewing format of your choice.